The Fluent Show - Episodes Tagged with “Books”

Our Favourite Language Learning Textbooks

Kerstin Cable — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 07:00:00 +0000

What makes a language textbook great? Why should you use a language textbook? And which ones are the best ones out there?

In today's episode, Lindsay and I sat down to dig through our language bookshelves and bring you a HUGE list of language textbooks that we have loved.

Click or tap here to download a PDF of all book recommendations

This PDF is a great file full of links to both Amazon and Hive, so you can browse and order all the books you want.

Lindsay and I discovered we have very different pop culture references for the word "library". Are you a Lindsay thinking of this..

via GIPHY

or a Kerstin thinking of this:

via GIPHY

Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the show by leaving a review in your podcast app or becoming a member of our Patreon community at patreon.com/fluentshow

If you're an online teacher, check out Lindsay's [Online Teaching Starter Kit](www.fluentlanguage.co.uk/lindsay-otsk) this week.

What Did You Learn in 2018? (with Shannon Kennedy)

Kerstin Cable — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Happy New Year! 🎇

Please take 5 minutes to take our Fluent Show survey!

In this episode, I hung out with friend of the podcast Shannon Kennedy to talk about saying goodbye to an old year and welcoming a new one.

Shannon is an accomplished language learner who's studied over 10 languages including French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, and Russian. Her year has always been about languages, and with her recent move to work with language app Drops, she even chose to add more languages.

Here are the year review questions we discussed. You can use them to conduct your own review of 2018 and set goals for the next year.

How would you sum up the year in your languages?
What changed in your life and in your languages in 2018?
What lessons do you think you learnt from the year 2018?
What surprised you?
What will you change going forward?
Looking forward, what are your language learning goals for 2019?

Shannon's top 3 books of 2018

Grit by Angela Duckworth
The Organised Mind by Daniel J. Levitin
Courses from the Assimil series

Shannon's top 3 apps of 2018

Drops, naturally!
Streaks
Lingq

Shannon's top 3 courses

Don't forget that Women in Language is back in March 2019!! Join us to experience this amazing 4-day conference live.

Click or tap here to read the full show notes in my blog article on www.fluentlanguage.co.uk

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Special Guest: Shannon Kennedy.

"You assume they don't have chick lit in Polish"

Kerstin Cable — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:30:00 +0100

In this episode, polyglot expert Shannon fills in for Lindsay - we catch up on our language learning and Duolingo, and then discuss why and how reading makes you fluent and smart and cultured.

Remember: If you visit our sponsor Clozemaster at www.clozemaster.com/cllp, you'll be supporting the Creative Language Learning Podcast for free!

Listen to find out..

Why did Duolingo wait so long to release Korean?

K-Pop and Kimchi lovers, look out for Duolingo's latest offering.
We catch up on news with the world's (probably) biggest language learning app, looking at its course offers and money-earning developments. They have a Pro membership now, but we're not mad at them!

How early should you read?

Reading from day 1 is what it's all about, and we discuss why it can boost fluency and memory when you start by reading right away. Think connecting what you see with what you hear to avoid stumbling blocks like bad spelling, dodgy pronunciation, and all-round low confidence.

What about difficult scripts?

While I've "elegantly" avoided learning complex writing systems such as Hiragana or Arabic for my languages, Shannon was on hand to advise on what it's like to learn another script.

How to find input for your level

It's hard to get over these two problems:

Coursebooks are obvious, but they're so limited and dull.
Books for learners are great, but they take for actual ever to read.

In this show, we share a few tips for reading in your target language and in a way that is actually interesting! Shannon reads with her son and loves the Lingq app, and I am a big fan of magazines.

Revelation about the Lingq app

I have tried reading-focused app Lingq before, but didn't quite get it...while Shannon is their biggest fan! What gives? Shannon shares tips and insights from what it's actually like to use this app.

Why you shouldn't just read Harry Potter in another language

Translated literature opens up linguistic worlds to you, but you could be missing a trick. There is nothing like reading the words that came from a country, and I make the case that it is always worth it to spend the extra time and effort on finding texts that are originally written in another language.

The Language Reading Challenge

For more inspiration and a look at what Shannon and other polyglots are reading right now, head to Goodreads to join the Reading Challenge hosted by Shannon.

What do you think? What do you read in your target language? And have you tried Shannon's challenge?

Special Guest: Shannon Kennedy.